Comfort Food, Expanded

A Review of Northend Bistro, in Princeton

Diners at Northend Bistro, which opened in June.Credit
Ben Solomon for The New York Times

The Northend Bistro is a comfortable oasis that beckons from its tucked-in spot in, yes, the north end of Princeton. Bare wooden tables and paper napkins signal a casual experience; metal dining chairs reflect the light from an abundance of windows and from backlit glass panels.

And the menu is exciting, within its comfort-food genre. It promises American favorites, with categories for macaroni and cheese, burgers (featuring La Frieda meat), tacos, sandwiches, entrees, pastas, sides and entree salads as well as nightly specials.

The bistro opened in June, the latest project of the brothers John and Tino Procaccini and their business partner, Zissis Pappas, who also own the deliciously adventurous pizza and salad spot in Kingston, Osteria Procaccini (also now in Pennington) and P. J.’s Pancake House in Princeton and West Windsor.

You can have a good meal at Northend Bistro. Meats and vegetables are fresh, some of the recipes are real winners and the free, fresh-fried potato chips that we were served on one of two visits were delicious.

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Sweet glazed salmon on stir-fried vegetables.Credit
Ben Solomon for The New York Times

Of the menu offerings I sampled, the sweet glazed salmon was the best. The wild-caught, grilled fish, generously portioned, was succulent and a fine foil to the feast of beautifully crisp-tender stir-fried vegetables beneath: green beans, carrots, zucchini, red onions, red peppers and asparagus on my visit.

Chili con carne, oddly on the appetizers menu, was a luscious dinner-size portion of the classic topped with avocado. The steak frites was a distant runner-up, despite a perfectly grilled medium-rare strip steak; it was marred by soggy truffled French fries.

Also good were the chicken tacos, a geometrically appealing but ascetic arrangement of three small discs holding diced meat, a smattering of queso fresco and a sprinkling of cilantro. The fourth spot on the plate contained a small round of succotash. (The menu promised mole sauce but I didn’t see any.) Slow-cooked spare ribs, a Wednesday night special, were also solid, with the meat tender and well-flavored.

But there were many more nearly good — or nearly very good — dishes that were undermined by management decisions and inattention to quality, to detail and to balance.

First, the service. On both visits, when I asked to take leftovers home, I was very cheerfully given a stack of plastic containers, lids and plastic shopping bags, and left to scrape away, there at the table filled with dishes from the meal. And at the start of a visit for two, my companion chose still water and I chose sparkling — but then learned that the only option for sparkling was a bottle that could easily serve four. And why is it that the salmon was honored with vegetables, but not the steak? Or the ribs?

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Chicken tacos with queso fresco and cilantro.Credit
Ben Solomon for The New York Times

Now, the food: The salmon, in addition to its splendor of vegetables, also came with three deep-fried gluey patties, though the menu promised a potato pancake. The spinach and artichoke dip lacked finesse; the texture was both slippery and thick, making the tortilla chips a fragile match. The sweet corn bread served alongside the chili crumbled at the touch. My portion of fried calamari with zucchini was, disappointingly, nearly all calamari, though the spicy tomato sauce — a Procaccini family recipe — was worth a return trip and made me think that the Italian dishes might be a better bet here. Mussels, too, were potential unrealized: overcooked, their delicate flavor overwhelmed with the same spicy tomato sauce.

The wedge salad, at $16, and listed among the entree salads, was miscategorized. Yes, there was plenty of lettuce, but the dominant flavor in my portion was blue cheese. I found a few bits of the promised cherrywood bacon and crisp shallots and a plethora of taste-free, diced out-of-season tomatoes.

Mushroom macaroni and cheese was relentlessly creamy and soft and looked as if it had been assembled after cooking — pasta, mushrooms, sauce. The beef-veal-pork meat loaf was dominated not by umami but by sweetness. Among the side dishes, brussels sprouts were overcooked to mushiness. Haricots verts in vinaigrette were beautiful, but they had been cooked in oil that had been overheated — an acrid waste.

Desserts were in a similar vein — too much fluff and not enough care and substance. The best of the lot was the brioche bread pudding, sweet but not too sweet.

Northend Bistro is so very close to being good. With rigorous attention, it could be very good. For now, it takes careful choosing to assemble an enjoyable meal.

IF YOU GO Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., with one menu. Limited parking in a lot shared with a Whole Earth Center natural foods store; there is also street parking. No reservations accepted, but parties larger than 10 are encouraged to call a few hours in advance.

RATINGS Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor.

A version of this review appears in print on December 15, 2013, on Page NJ12 of the New York edition with the headline: Comfort Food, Expanded. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe